Ridge Road in western Wayne county offered an easier alternative to the morning suburban rush congestion AND, often, a good look at CSX and Soo/CP traffic. Nice way to start the work day!

Plymouth Junction got kinda crowded sometimes, so this eastbound CP has to wait its turn. Containers on this run were loaded singly in order to fit through the Detroit River Tunnels, not yet enla... (more)

Two clean SD50s make a run for Salem hill with a CPOX ("chicken pox") coal train. Just over my shoulder is "Mt. Trashmore," a monumental landfill, but you'll never see it because RP declines to a... (more)

Luckily for GP30 aficionados, CSX chose to convert a number of them to road slugs, mated with GP40-2 "mothers" and often used at Plymouth to assist coal trains around the wye and up Salem hill. T... (more)

OK, I have to admit that, purely from an aesthetic point of view and not from operational or safety concerns, the "stealth" look could be appealing, as on these GE's rounding the Plymouth wye in t... (more)

I love it when the newer paint starts to wear off and you can see remnants of older liveries peaking through, as on this B&O GP30, starting to exhibit the "sunrise" heritage on its nose.

CSX's first paint schemes were an admirable paean to the two sides of the Mason-Dixon line, but they did little to attract interest at grade crossings, coming out of a fog! It was interesting to ... (more)

Sufficient power for a local? The start of CSX brought a flood of non-Chessie locomotives to Michigan rails, and some of them ended up performing some rather unusual services.

Got a dimensional load coming? This vehicle seems to have all the necessary measurements covered.

The UP in Wisconsin, GTW in Mississippi, NS in New York ... oh, how mergers and acquisitions mix up the railroads! In Plymouth, Michigan this Seaboard U-boat prepares to drill the local Ford (lat... (more)

The advent of Soo Line's longhaul freights on CSX across Michigan (continued later by CP) brought a welcome upsurge of activity for railfans but marked a disturbing economic trend, that Michigan w... (more)